Billy Idol was the name we gave Ruthie in the hospital in the days immediately after she was born. She had fluorescent white hair, and had she been born to different parents, they might have thought more of it. But both of Ruthie's parents had bleached blond hair as young children. So in the late summer and into the fall of 2006, we happily celebrated the arrival of our second child, little blond baby Ruthie "Billie Idol" Weiss.Like many second-time (...) parents, we doted less. We did not love less, but we were clearly less excited. We were much more exhausted. We also paid a little less attention. Around the time Ruthie turned one month old, Palmer started to tell me about things she had noticed that seemed off. By... (shrink)

Signaling through the Wnt/β‐catenin pathway is relayed through three multiprotein complexes: (1) the membrane‐associated signalosome, which includes the activated Wnt receptors, (2) the cytoplasmic destruction complex that regulates turnover of the transcriptional coactivator β‐catenin, and (3) the nuclear enhanceosome that mediates pathway‐specific transcription. Recent discoveries have revealed that Wnt receptor activities are tightly regulated to maintain proper tissue homeostasis and that aberrant receptor upregulation enhances Wnt signaling to drive tumorigenesis, highlighting the importance of signalosome control. These studies have focused on (...) the detailed process by which Wnt ligands engage their coreceptors, LRP5/6 and Frizzled. However, the components that constitute the signalosome and the regulation of their assembly remain undefined. In this review, we discuss Wnt/β‐catenin signalosome composition and the mechanisms that regulate signalosome assembly, including the role of biomolecular condensates and ubiquitylation. We also summarize the evidence for the presence of Wnt ligand‐independent signalosome formation. (shrink)

This second volume of Eric Voegelin’s miscellaneous papers contains unpublished writings from the time of his forced emigration from Austria in 1938 until his death in 1985. The volume’s focus is on dialogue and discussion, presenting Voegelin in the role of lecturer, discussant, and respondent. “The Drama of Humanity” presents the Walter Turner Candler Lectures delivered in four parts at Emory University in 1967. This text, a small book in itself, addresses the themes of “The Contemporary Situation,” “Man in the (...) Cosmos,” “The Epiphany of Man,” and “Man in Revolt,” providing the reader with a good introduction to Voegelin’s later work. Another extensive text included in this volume is “Conversations with Eric Voegelin at the Thomas More Institute” in Montreal. These exchanges include lectures and discussions given by Voegelin between 1967 and 1976. A number of other sections offer insight into Voegelin’s intellectual development over a period of forty years. These include the complete “Foreword” to the second edition of _The Political Religions, _which is published here for the first time; “Notes on T. S. Eliot’s _Four Quartets_;” the “Cycle Theory and Disintegrations;” “What Is Political Theory?;” “The Spiritual and Political Future of the Western World;” “Notes on ‘Civilization and Foreign Affairs;’” “Structures of Consciousness;” “The Beyond and Its Parousia;” and the 1983 “Responses at the Panel Discussion of ‘The Beginning of the Beginning.’” Several lengthy excerpts from conference dialogues with other scholars are also included: “The West and the Meaning of Industrial Society,” “Natural Law in Political Theory,” and “Man in Political Institutions.” Volume 33 concludes with Voegelin’s “Autobiographical Statement at the Age of Eighty-Two,” his last public utterance on the course of his life and his life’s work. By choosing dialogue as the focus of this volume, Petropulos and Weiss are able to show not only the extent to which Voegelin engaged in an exchange of ideas but also his abiding concern for the practical and theoretical conditions necessary in order for this exchange to take place. (shrink)

The practice of paternalism has changed along with developments in medicine, philosophy, law, sociology and psychology. Physicians have learned that a patient's values are a factor in determining what is best for that patient. Modern paternalism continues to be guided by the principle that the physician decides what is best for the patient and pursues that course of action, taking into account the values and interests of the patient. In the autonomy model of the doctor-patient relationship, patient values are decisive. (...) In the paternalistic model, they are but one among several factors the physician must consider in making a medical decision. Although difficult to practise because of limitations in empathising with another person, modern paternalism remains a way to achieve maximum patient benefit. (shrink)

This essay analyzes one of Germany's former premier research institutions for biomedical research, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics (KWIA) as a test case for the way in which politics and human heredity served as resources for each other during the Third Reich. Examining the KWIA from this perspective brings us a step closer to answering the questions at the heart of most recent scholarship concerning the biomedical community under the swastika: (1) How do we explain (...) why the vast majority of German human geneticists and eugenicists were willing to work for the National Socialist state and, at the very least, legitimized its exterminationist racial policy; and (2) what accounts for at least some of Germany's most renowned medically trained professionals' involvement in forms of morally compromised science that wholly transcend the bounds of normal scientific practice? Although a complete answer to this question must await an examination of other German biological research centers, the present study suggests that during the Nazi period the symbiotic relationship between human genetics and politics served to radicalize both. The dynamic between the science of human heredity and Nazi politics changed the research practice of some of the biomedical sciences housed at the KWIA. It also simultaneously made it easier for the Nazi state to carry out its barbaric racial program leading, finally, to the extermination of millions of so-called racial undesirables. (shrink)

v. 1. 1955-1960.--v. 2. 1960-1964.--v. 3. March-November 1964.--v. 4. November 26, 1964-September 2, 1965.--v. 5. September 3, 1965-August 27, 1968.--v. 6. August 28, 1968-May 22, 1971.--v. 7. April 13, 1975-June 21, 1976.--v. 7, pt. 2. September 17, 1977-February 26, 1978.--v. 8. April 28, 1978-July 28, 1980 -- v. 9. August 16, 1980-March 15, 1984 -- v. 11. January 19, 1986-May 27, 1987.

1. In this paper have done what Niklas Luhmann always recommended us to do: I have drawn a distinction – or to be more precise, I have some distinctions. I have done so because I think, and you all know, that in the ongoing debates on so-called “globalization” there is not enough of distinction, and no distinction at all very often. And that is particularly unsatisfactory if the critique, or even the rejection, of globalization is at stake. 2. The first (...) of my distinctions is between Europeanization (in Heidegger’s sense) and Americanization, as this term is meant usually today. These two concepts, and the processes they refer to, seem to be quite similar in so far as what is meant that a particular part of mankind at a given period of history has succeeded in becoming a hegemonic power on a global scale – economically, politically (and militarily) and/or culturally. One could think, and Heidegger himself really does, that those two processes have also in common that they are historically contingent: Nothing of this sort could have happened as well; other powers could have, and have indeed, played a similar role at other times; it could have come out completely different etc. etc. In my view, though, there should be made a distinction here because the world-wide success-story of modern science and technology has to be accounted for by causes and dynamics which are not only gradually, but qualitatively different from what we need to explain the globalization of, let’s say, American blue jeans, or T‐Shirts etc. 3. This brings me to the distinction between globalization and Americanization, which are identified nowadays very often, and that particularly so in order to attack and reject globalization as being nothing but Americanization. At this point, then, it seems to me necessary to draw distinction between (a) globalization as such – regarded to be a factual, complex and heterogeneous process that has to be analyzed in all its aspects by econonomists, sociologists etc and (b) universalization. (shrink)

A God would have the wisdom, power and concern to do all that must be done to supplement man's activities in such a way that only good is done, and this everywhere. If we could count on his existence, concern and aid, we could be sure of getting the right help and to the right degree. Only a God is both powerful and wise enough to provide all the help that would be needed, and only a God is good and (...) wise enough to give it always at the right time and in the right way. He alone can guarantee the perfect production of whatever was distorted and left undone because of man's impotence, ignorance and folly. It is tempting therefore to claim that men always do, or that they always should look to a God for the aid they need if good is to be fully realized. (shrink)

These various paradoxes can be viewed as variants of a ninth to the effect that men ought to do what is absolutely right, although none has sufficient power or knowledge for the purpose. It is to this last paradox that I shall devote the major part of my discourse. I will try to show that the paradox is inescapable, that a number of commonly accepted answers to it are unsatisfactory, and that an adequate answer to it will require a consideration (...) of activities and categories which are outside the province of ethics. Only after these steps are covered will we be in a position to justify our basic contention that ethics and religion are independent and even sometimes incompatible enterprises. (shrink)

Star Trek becomes an ideal vehicle for modern narratives exploring the nature of being human in a technological age. In its fifty years of robots, androids, cyborgs, and alien others on the small and big screens, Star Trek has played a function not unlike that of Greek myth. Whether dealing with Greek gods such as Apollo, salt‐craving beasts and Hortas, or hive minds and androids, Star Trek fashions moderns’ myths that provoke reflection on what it means to be human and (...) transformations that either preserve or destroy one's humanity. It is seen that the feminist model in the long processes of development of the android Data, liberated Borg drone Seven of Nine, and Voyager's holographic Doctor, and their struggle to understand, if not finally attain, humanity. As children who were insufficiently socialized into their own families, these three characters face the difficult task of reconstituting families aboard Enterprise or Voyager. (shrink)

What is termed today globalisation or, in French, mondialisation, and viewed very sceptically, in many cases also sharply criticized and even rejected, has neither descended over humanity like a natural catastrophe nor is it the unintentional evil of irreproachable good intentions. It is, rather, at its core at any rate, exactly what the so-called „project of modernity“ wanted and aimed at from the very beginning, and what has been worked out, propagated and put into practice particularly in the area of (...) the European-American enlightenment, in the systems of ideas that followed and socio-cultural and political movements connected with it. And yet the intellectual and political Protagonists of the said project would be taken aback if they were to see what has become of it. After sufficient reflection and analysis, however, they would have to realize that it had to lead to this, at least by and large. In my paper I intend to show this and back it up. (shrink)

Philosophy in the twentieth century, by and large, has not been interested in comprehensive accounts. This development can be attributed in large part to the breaking of philosophy into schools and the rise of professionalism, both of which have led to the reduction of philosophy as a subject. The task of the philosopher cannot justifiably be so confined. He must attempt to understand all the pivotal realities, what they do, and how they are related. Philosophy is an exploration and adventure. (...) I want to engage in it in order to understand reality, to pay attention to pivotal features, and to the ways in which they are interlocked. Philosophy is a discipline in a constant process of adventurous discovery. (shrink)

Philosophy in Process, Volume 7, Part II continues the publication of the working journals, the intellectual diary of one of the greatest modern metaphysicians.

This is the first of two special issues and the articles are grouped according to two themes: This first issue will feature articles that share a theme we call Technologies and the Political, while the second issue will feature the theme Subjectivities. However, we could equally consider them exercises in provincialization in the (counter)factual register in the first issue, and by affective historiography as conceptual-empirical labor(atory) in the second issue. What we have generally asked of all authors is to consider (...) that the relation between science and society is often heavily influenced by and identified in the intermediary figurations portrayed in the genre of science fiction. (shrink)

Many organizations must manage institutional complexity – the presence of competing “logics,” or patterned sets of beliefs, rules, and actions. Some of this management occurs within organizations, such as when managers recruit workers who align with a preferred logic. Often, however, institutional management occurs at the boundaries between organizations that work together despite adhering to competing logics. Boundary-spanners – actors belonging to one organization but interfacing with others – must know how to speak the language of their organizational partners in (...) order to secure resources and accomplish their host organization’s goals. Existing literature on boundary-spanners’ institutional management strategies focuses on organizational elites like executives, top managers, and technical experts. As organizations, particularly social service organizations, become increasingly decentralized, however, boundary-spanning occurs at lower-levels of organizational hierarchies. Drawing on 30 months of participant observation and 20 in-depth interviews in a rape crisis center, I show how low-level organization members like volunteers, who frequently interact with organizational partners including law enforcement and medical professionals, learn to navigate institutional complexity. This advances neoinstitutional theory by showing how in decentralized, diffuse organizations, both organizational elites and members at low-levels of the organizational hierarchy must competently manage their institutional environments. (shrink)